Germany: Left Party boss wants 1 million migrants per year, calls it a ‘manageable’ number despite ongoing migration crisis

Germany should take in 1 million migrants a year, says Left Party head right before national elections

(AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)
By Remix News Staff
9 Min Read

Despite ongoing immigration chaos, including terror attacks and stabbings, but also an exploding education, healthcare and housing crisis, Left Party leader Jan van Aken said that Germany can easily take in 1 million people per year.

In an interview with Funke Media Group, he called it a “completely manageable number.” And in a move that could lead to an explosion of more immigrants, he also called for the granting of asylum in Germany for those “who are feeling the consequences of climate change.”

Notably, such a designation is left greatly to interpretation, but could theoretically cover billions of people on Earth.

In fact, he specifically references Pakistan and Bangladesh, two of the most populous countries in the world.

“The climate catastrophe is already making entire regions uninhabitable – for example in Pakistan or Bangladesh,” said van Aken. Together, the two nations have a population of 200 million.

Van Aken said that within the next 20 or 30 years, tens of millions of people will have to flee their countries because they can no longer live in their countries.

However, van Aken acknowledges that Germany could not take in unlimited numbers.

“There is always a limit to what we can handle. But is it 100,000, 1 million or 10 million migrants per year in Germany?” He then added: “After the Russian attack on Ukraine, more than a million war refugees came to us. That is a completely manageable number.”

Similar initiatives to accept climate refugees have been put forward by the Green Party in the past.

However, van Aken’s claims are contradicted on many levels. Those dealing with the immigration crisis most acutely, the mayor and district administrators in Germany, are continuously sending out emergency messages, saying that they lack the resources to take in more migrants.

Among the biggest complaints is a serious lack of housing across the country, which is most acutely felt in large cities. In Berlin, for example, the state is paying half a billion euros per for migrant accommodations while freezing the education budget due to a spiraling cycle of debt. At the same time, statistics in Berlin which show that nearly half the gang rape suspects are foreigners, and a significant but unknown percentage likely with a migration background, have revealed that many of the newcomers are fueling a crime crisis that is traumatizing women across the country.

It is not just the “right” highlighting this crisis. District Administrator Matthias Jendricke for Nordhausen, a Social Democrat (SPD) politician, said: “This large number of migrants can no longer be managed. Not in terms of integration. Not in the social system. Not on the housing market.”

Bremen is one of the most pro-migration cities in Germany, but there, the left is coming to terms with reality as well. Bremen’s immigration policy has been a disaster and is contributing to housing and social problems, including an exploding crime rate, said Bremen’s Interior Senator Ulrich Mäurer of the far-left Social Democrats (SPD) just last year.

The city is “completely overwhelmed with taking in so many people,” said Mäurer while speaking with German newspaper Weser-Kurier. He said that the problems have “worsened.”

Mäurer has been there since the start, helping guide the city’s radical policy towards immigration. The 73-year-old has been in office for 16 years. It is only now that he blames “massive immigration” for the housing shortage and “enormous difficulties” in daycares, schools, and at job sites.

Even at the federal level, some of the most radical left-wing parties have figures acknowledging the migration crisis.

German Green Party Agricultural Minister Cem Özdemir wrote in a highly debated opinion piece last year that his daughter is being sexually harassed by migrants:

“When she is out and about in the city, she or her friends are often unpleasantly stared at or sexualized by men with a migrant background,” Özdemir, who has an immigration background himself, wrote.

Crime has been a major factor as well, with North-Rhine Westphalia CDU interior minister, Herbert Reul, saying last year, following the publication of the crime statistics, that it was time to talk about “foreign crime,” accepting that foreign nationals are now “significantly overrepresented” in almost every category.

Meanwhile, district administrator Götz Ulrich of the Burgerland district said: “We are completely overwhelmed. In terms of integration, we need simple rules for quick employment and much more money for language courses.”

The Left Party leader, Van Aken, is running for election in Hamburg. There, the migrant accommodation capacity is at 96.5 percent, and the majority of students now have a migration background. This development in the port city, and many other locations across Germany, has led to a crisis in the school system, warned Stefan Düll, the president of the German Teachers’ Association, just last year.

“Due to immigration in 2015, the war in Ukraine and other immigration, new people are constantly coming into the system, but the system is slow to keep up because it is moving too fast,” said Dülli, who told news agency DTS that the school system was overloaded due to excessive immigration.

The president says that a high proportion of these children speak little or no German, which is putting an enormous burden on teachers.

“After all, they don’t speak Farsi or Ukrainian. How are they supposed to teach them?” he asked.

He said that students are also less motivated. “The higher the percentage of immigrants, the more difficult it is to motivate the class,” stated Düll. In his opinion, the high number of immigrants could also lead to “the group of illiterates becoming larger.” As Remix News reported last year, 25 percent of 4th graders cannot read in Germany.

At the same time, other top politicians of the Left Party have been caught making hateful remarks against Germans in the past, including the former leader of the party and current MP.

“Every year, more Germans die than are born. Fortunately, this is because the Nazis are not very prolific,” said MP Gregor Gysi.


Share This Article

SEE EUROPE DIFFERENTLY

Sign up for the latest breaking news 
and commentary from Europe and beyond